Yesterday I wrote this about my friend Juan Manuel Sánchez who died on October 5, 2016.

From him I learned lots about art and how to become more human. I learned patience and that inspiration comes if one looks for it.

But of all that he taught me, he was the only one who made it seem normal (is it?) for an artist or this amateur to contemplate and then accept an obsession to record the body and soul of a woman with the least amount of trappings.

In the almost 15 years that we were friends he and his wife Nora Patrich were the only ones who gave me comfort (by example) that my need to photograph women in any way or form (but preferably undraped) was not unusual. By example I mean that both Sánchez and Patrich painted, drew and sketched the female form.

Sánchez’s particular obsession was more acute than mine. He would stare at a blank canvas and then he would begin to work. He called the blank canvas a problem in need of a resolution. Through his long life that resolution meant to simplify form to its bare minimum and still convey the essence of what he was painting.In most cases that would be the ultimate woman as a Platonic Essence.



But I can also here contrast what he did and what I did. He could paint from memory. He did not need to paint from life although he welcomed the many opportunities to sit in my studio with his wife and sketch a parade of women that I brought in. As a photographer I cannot point my camera at nothing. I need a subject. If that subject is exposed as a photograph there will always be that marked difference on how we look an accept a reproduction on canvas and how in most cases we will reject a photographic version.

Of all that he tried to explain that it was as normal as eating, talking or anything else.

Living in a conservative and many times extreme politically correct city his words seemed to be of one “crying in the wilderness”.

One of my daughters thinks I am a pornographer. My wife simply tolerates what I do. Perhaps there is a barrier between would-be artists (me) and those who do not contemplate being one.

With Sánchez gone from my life as a tactile presence I can only find refuge in his words in my memory.

Claudia en la pared de Nora Patrich

One of the most influential mentors of my life, Juan Manuel Sánchez died yesterday, one year ago. Sánchez, in fact was the most influential person in my artistic life, something that I have come to understand in the last few years.

Before I met him in the waning year of the 20^th century I considered myself to be a very good and efficient commercial and editorial photographer. It was Sánchez who pushed me to accept that I was an artist, too.

With his wife (Argentine like Sánchez) Nora Patrich we embarked in a series of personal and collaborative projects that had me in contact with them every day. They lived nearby here in Vancouver so we drank mate, talked on the phone and in person and discussed projects.

My almost 10 year collaboration (until they split up and returned in separate airplanes to Buenos Aires) produced thousands of negatives, slides and Polaroids. I could fill large stadiums with that output.

All that enthusiasm and alegría is gone. Some of it lingers with Nora Patrich (she comes to Vancouver about twice a year) as she is ready to embark on anything. In fact we are having a joint show (her stuff, my stuff and our collaborative stuff) at the very nice and one of the few real galleries left in Buenos Aires called Galería Vermeer. Our show is to be in August 2018.

Patrich and I are I weekly contact with WhatsApp deciding what to put up and how to make some collaborative work that is brand new.

At the very least when Sánchez was alive I never took him for granted. I knew how lucky I was. I saw him not too long before he died and when I finished my café cortado in the corner café near his house and we said goodbye I almost knew it was to be for the last time.

Tetsuro Shigematsu, Richard Wolfe & Steve Charles (note transparent LP record)

Last night’s opening at the Cultch's Historic Theatre of Tetsuro Shigematsu’s 1 Hour Photo directed by my friend Richard Wolfe defies a short-words definition.

In fact just about anything at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre including the now showing The Goblin Market follows what now seems to be a rule to break the rigid cultural barriers of our city.

Looking at the adevertising you might think that 1 Hour photo is a one-man show. But on stage not only did I see Shigematsu but also Sound Designer/Composer/ Performer, Steve Charles who should add to that DJ.

The stage designed by Pam Johnson included a screen, a long and black storage area with drawers, a plinth, a classic record turntable and Charles’s guitar, keyboard, etc.

The whole show was lit by lighting man Gerald King whose work I have seen mostly in dance. Since Shigematsu does dance (with long pointed shoes) and moves a lot, it is most appropriate to have a dance lighting designer.

I have a friend who is a theatrical lighting designer and she has told me how boring it is these days as in most cases she had to light a living room set! 1 Hour Photo must be challenging but really interesting to ligth. King must be a happy man.

The show mixes old media like a record (transparent like my old Fantasy Records Dave Brubeck Quartet albums) turntable with a state of the art camera with a built-in extreme close-up capability which helped us look into a miniature version of a house where both the subject of the show, Mas Yamamoto and his family including daughter Donna Yamamoto (the Artistic Producer of the show) and Shigematsu’s father and family lived.

In fact I would define the 1 Hour Photo as a show & tell kind of show that never bores and is full of humour but of little bitterness.

In the heels of last year’s presentation at the Cultch’s York Theatre of the play about the residential schools for Native Canadians, Children of God, the contrast between a brutal sorrow and bitterness with Shigematsu’s more positive take was a relief. I went home less depressed.

Not too underneath the surface of a show of a Japanese man, Mas Yamamoto was the other story of Shigematsu’s own father. Such was the back-and-forth narrative (which includes a description of Shigematsu’s father’s death) that when at the end an elderly Japanese man embraced Shigematsu I was surprised to find out that Mas Yamamoto indeed was alive and well, a man who succeeded in spite of all odds against him. In short 1Hour Photo is not a one-man-show but a live sometimes funny exploration of human character with a little love story thrown in.

What endeared me to the show and to Shigematsu (1 Hour Photo was also written by him) was his constant going from here to there and from there to here via a Volkswagen-sized digital camera (the first!) and the always centering the work with that recording of his interview with  Yamamoto. I was told that the interview was over 30 hours long and that explains why CBC’s Yvone Gall is listed as the Audio Dramaturg.

My guess is that the digital and latest technology Dramaturg is Shigematsu himself.

Wikipedia

It is interesting to know that Yoko Ono was an Issei.

Generations

Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians have special names for each of their generations in North America. These are formed by combining one of the Japanese numbers corresponding to the generation with the Japanese word for generation (sei 世). The Japanese-American and Japanese-Canadian communities have themselves distinguished their members with terms like Issei, Nisei, and Sansei which describe the first, second and third generation of immigrants. The fourth generation is called Yonsei (四世) and the fifth is called Gosei (五世). The Issei, Nisei and Sansei generations reflect distinctly different attitudes to authority, gender, non-Japanese involvement, and religious belief and practice, and other matters.The age when individuals faced the wartime evacuation and internment is the single, most significant factor which explains these variations in their experiences, attitudes and behaviour patterns.

On Tuesday afternoon my Rosemary and I returned from a three night and two day visit to our older daughter Ale’s home (almost one acre) in Lillooet, British Columbia.

We did two days of heavy gardening but we had little time left to move plants around. Many of Ale’s plants came from our old and very large Athlone garden in Kerrisdale. I thought that Gallica roses and rugosas would do well in the extreme heat and cold of Lillooet and that was the case. They are happy campers except for the fact that Ale has visiting bears and deer that like roses, too.

The days were cool, windy but the sun was out. They were classic fall days.

Rosemary & Ale with Lloyd McNary

If we manage to buy some snow tires we might return before spring. We have no room in our small house to store summer tires but I might find a place (where I would buy my winter tires) to store them for us.

The temperature in Lillooet was around 20. By the time we drove back by Seton Lake the temperature went down to 3 Celsius. We will have a few more good fall days I am sure. To celebrate them, you will find here flowers from Ale’s garden. There are some zinnias, her extraordinary sunflowers (on the wane) and one Rosa rugosa from a bush that was blooming very nicely.